Dive Brief:

• Casper today announced a retail partnership with Mattress Warehouse, one of the traditional mattress sellers the DTC brand has been lauded for disrupting. It is the brand's first partnership with the company, a spokesperson confirmed.

• Starting in July, Casper products will be sold in over 60 Mattress Warehouse stores, with the rollout hitting additional locations in the following months. The assortment will include Casper's mattresses and pillows, and will also be sold online at Sleephappens.com, according to a company press release.

• The deal is one of 28 wholesale partnerships Casper has developed over the years, including with Target in the earlier days of its business, and more recently with the likes of Nordstrom and Sam's Club. 

Dive Insight:

Casper's most recent wholesale partnership is with a traditional mattress seller — in other words, one of the retailers that were supposed to be most at risk as Casper rose to popularity.

As the DTC brand has looked for more wholesale partnerships to expand its sales channels, specialty mattress and furniture stores have lately made the list, including Ashley HomeStore, Denver Mattress and Mathis Brothers. While DTC still makes up the bulk of its sales, wholesale rose over 50% in its most recent quarter, accounting for over a quarter of the company's sales.

"We're relentlessly focused on delivering a broader range of sleep solutions to consumers across the U.S. and Canada," Emilie Arel, chief commercial officer and president of Casper, said in a statement. "This partnership with Mattress Warehouse is part of our strategic retail expansion with the rollout of our latest product offerings."

As such, the partnership will feature Casper's new line of cooling mattresses. Mattress Warehouse will also offer in-store pickup and free shipping on all Casper products.

It's not the first time a DTC brand has partnered with the same retailers it was created to disrupt, nor the first mattress brand. Fellow DTC brand Purple began selling through Mattress Firm in 2017 and later expanded that partnership.

"It's been exciting to watch Casper grow from a start-up to their current position as one of the most well-known companies in the sleep and bedding industry," Bill Papettas, president of Mattress Warehouse, said in a statement. Papettas added that Casper's range of products at varying price points would "resonate strongly with consumers in our stores."

While Casper benefited from being in the booming home space over the past year and a half, it has not all been smooth sailing for the mattress brand. The company's IPO price when it went public early last year was slashed from its original expectations, and its public filing also revealed it had yet to reach profitability. (It still hasn't).

As the pandemic took its toll, the company cut 21% of its corporate workforce and wound down its European unit. The DTC brand has also recently become a regular on S&P's most vulnerable retailers list.